by Christian Jennings ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2016
An excellent book refreshingly unlike most tedious, confusing war stories. Jennings brings his easy journalistic style and...
Journalist and war correspondent Jennings (Bosnia's Million Bones: Solving the World's Greatest Forensic Puzzle, 2013, etc.) chronicles the World War II battles in Italy in 1944 and 1945.
Laced through the story are the viewpoints of fascinating individuals involved in the fighting. At the same time, the author gives us a broad overview, reporting battle details clearly and providing vivid descriptions of the impenetrable German line. Trying to drive the Germans out of Italy was the job of a truly diverse army. There were soldiers from India, America, Brazil, New Zealand, Poland, and Canada. They were arrayed against the Gothic Line, which ran from Rimini on the east coast to Carrara on the west. The German army, under Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, had escaped the fighting in the south because American Gen. Mark Clark decided the glory of liberating Rome was more important than cutting off the German army. Kesselring made potent use of Italy’s geography to dig into the mountains and set up minefields, and he even buried tank turrets as bunkers. The Allies split into three units to move up the center of the line to Bologna, in the west toward the Tuscan coast, and in the Adriatic toward Ravenna. Ready to attack, the Allies were suddenly ordered to divert some divisions to the invasion at Nice, a move that took all pressure off Hitler, gave Stalin free rein in his westward push, and guaranteed that the fight for the Gothic Line would be bloody. The struggle seemed never-ending. The author takes to task those generals who ignored orders, causing extended fighting and untold deaths. He also includes a helpful section at the end, “What Became of the Characters in the Book.”
An excellent book refreshingly unlike most tedious, confusing war stories. Jennings brings his easy journalistic style and thorough fact finding to one of the most desperate conflicts of the war, teaching us how war stories should be written.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-06517-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
Share your opinion of this book
More by Christian Jennings
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
22
Our Verdict
GET IT
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2017
New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
National Book Award Finalist
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Share your opinion of this book
More by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.